


a change came o’er the spirit of my dream

by romangold



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Alternate Universe - Magic, Imaginary Friends, reunited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-16
Updated: 2016-07-16
Packaged: 2018-07-24 11:05:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7505880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romangold/pseuds/romangold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seventeen years later, Mark is visited by an old friend he thought had simply been coinage of his own brain.</p>
<p>Story for the Sunshine Project prompt from week two: "Reunited"</p>
            </blockquote>





	a change came o’er the spirit of my dream

The door slammed shut; though the sound ceased after the quick clap, it seemed to reverberate through the quiet house that was being stripped bare bit by bit.

The child responsible for the action pattered through his room and flung himself onto his bed, curling his fists into the sheets. The mattress shook with his shoulders and allowed the blankets to protect it from his tears.

Mark wept bitterly, pressing his body into the bed as if his dying wish was to fuse with it. The child couldn’t control his emotions, and heavy sobs wracked his frame like river reeds in a storm.

There were no other noises within the house. He was left to his own devices.

“Why are you crying?”

Mark sniffled and picked his head up, thick tears still leaving their sticky tracks down his cheeks. He knew he wouldn’t be alone for long the moment he had slammed the door to his room. After rubbing at his eyes, he sat up next to his best friend, legs dangling from the bed.

"What's the matter?" Jack asked, tugging at the other boy's jacket. "I've never seen you like this before."

Mark's hand curled into a fist, and he pressed it into his eye to wipe away the unwanted tears that still lingered there. "It's the worst thing that's ever happened in history."

The smaller boy's eyes sparkled with fear, threatening tears of their own. "What, Mark?"

With sticky tear tracks dried on his skin, the ten-year-old spoke.

"Me and my family are moving away."

Jack's hand snatched his friend's arm as if it were the only thing that existed to keep him afloat in a universe trying to drown him. "You- you mean- we won't be able to see each other anymore? Why are your parents doing this?"

Mark shook his head, fingers digging themselves into Jack's shirt. "I don't know. They just said that we can't stay here anymore."

"You'll visit me, though!" The hopeful expression on the Irish boy's face only lasted for a moment before the light in his eyes died out. "Right?"

Mark felt a fresh wave of tears form, but he blinked them away. "Jack, I...we're moving to a completely different town...and we're not coming back. I don't know what to say."

The break of Jack’s heart was nearly audible as tears leaked down the younger boy's cheeks now, slow and somber. "But- but- we're summer fun buddies! Best friends forever! You're not...coming back for me?"

Mark bit his lip, wanting for all the world to just take his friend along for the move. "Jack...I was talking to my dad about you, and..." No, he had promised himself that he wasn’t going to talk about this. Mark knew it wasn’t true.

Jack stiffened, moving away. "And what?"

"He told me that you're not real."

Mark blinked, and Jack had moved from his position on the bed to holding his ground in front of him, staring him down. "But I'm standing right in front of you! I can touch you and talk to you!" A smirk grew, and he reached forward to ruffle his friend's pitch black hair, knocking his glasses askew. "I think that qualifies as real!"

Mark chuckled and poked at Jack's sides. "Don't be such a doof!"

"You're the doof!"

The two slapped at each other, laughing just for the sake of it until Mark flopped back onto his mattress, a smile stuck to his lips, eyes shut as he relaxed. He wanted to remember this moment, on his bed. He couldn't imagine ever getting used to a new room, sleeping under a new roof.

A shadow hovered over his head, blocking the light above him. Mark opened his eyes, a bittersweet smile forming over his lips.

"I wish I could stay here with you, Jack."

The younger boy smiled from his position, floating several feet above Mark. “I wish I could go with you.”

“I’ll hide you in our trunk!” Mark jumped from the bed to pull a dusty duffel bag from underneath. “I can put snacks in here for you, and a pillow so you can nap! It’s not a long drive, I promise-”

“Mark.”

The boy turned to face his best friend, who stood upside-down in mid-air, nose just inches from Mark’s.

“I can’t go with you,” Jack said. “I’m sorry.”

Mark sniffled again. “It’s not fair. I don’t want to leave!” He kicked the duffel bag as if it were the reason everything was changing; there was a sound thunk as it hit the side of the bed.

Jack had righted himself and was now floating several inches off the ground so that the two boys were the same height. “We’ll always be best friends,” he proclaimed. He spat in his open palm and held it out. “Swear on it!”

Mark spat in his own hand before joining it with Jack’s. “I swear!”

It wasn’t long before they were hugging, too afraid to let go in case they were torn apart right then and there.

“We’ll see each other again,” Jack whispered as they embraced.

Mark had started to cry again. “When?”

“In the future. When we’re both older.”

The bigger of the two pressed his face into Jack’s shoulder with a whimper. “You promise?”

Jack pulled away to hold Mark at arm’s length. “I promise. And I’ve never broken a promise before, have I?”

Mark smiled slightly through his tears and shook his head.

“Right! So it’s only goodbye for now!” Jack leapt onto the bed, wrapping the blanket around his shoulders like a cape. “Let’s have one last adventure before you leave! How about we sail away and become pirates? No rules, no worries!”

Mark gave an excited yell and pounced on the bed as well, wrapping an arm around his first mate as the room flooded with saltwater and a brisk wind tugged on the sail that grew from the mattress.

Later that night, as Mark lay in bed, he gave a whisper into the darkness.

“You won’t forget about me, will you?”

A chuckle filled the room. “No. Never.”

The mattress dipped suddenly. Jack smiled from where he had appeared on the other side of the bed. “I’ll find you again one day. I promised, didn’t I?”

Mark sat up and twiddled his fingers. “Jack,” the older child murmured,“I don’t care about other people. I think you’re real.”

His friend laughed, and his happiness lifted him up to hover over the blankets. “I’ll still be real when you leave, silly. I’m not disappearing, just taking a vacation!” Mark blinked, and Jack was gone, leaving only a whisper behind.

“Go to sleep. I’ll see you later, Mark.”

* * *

Mark woke up to something clattering in the kitchen.

After a second of paralyzing fear, he sat upright in his bed. His hand wandered down to grip at the baseball bat he kept at his side for emergencies. He was too paranoid for his own good.

His feet touched the chilly floor of his room; he waited before moving, trying to remember the best places to step so that nothing would creak. It was the middle of the night, and though nothing else seemed out of place, Mark still made his way out the door of his room.

Maybe this was why his mother hadn’t wanted him to live on his own after he left college.

There had never been anything wrong with his house in the one year he had spent living in it. LA was warm and relaxing, like a permanent vacation, though living on the opposite side of the country was a challenge from time to time. No family. A handful of friends he barely spoke to.

And now, it seemed, a criminal.

The kitchen was empty. For some reason, this made the man even more anxious than before, the idea of someone hiding out of sight tugging at his nerves and pulling on them until they were fit to spark and electrocute him. He wondered if 27 was too old to still be afraid of monsters hiding in your blind spots, in the places where the light just couldn’t reach.

Mark remembered when he had cleaned his kitchen lazily, putting everything back where it belonged, wiping down the counter and leaving it bare.

It certainly wasn’t bare now.

Mark moved forward, his heart pounding away all other noises from his ears. There was a piece of paper on the counter, colored over with...was that crayon? He picked it up, hands slightly sweaty.

It looked like a preschool art project. Water, a boat, a smiling sun with wiggly rays radiating from it. Two stick figures with eyepatches and black scribbles over their heads. What kind of-

"Do you love it?"

Mark cried out and spun around, weapon at the ready, nearly slipping in his socks. He had hoped to find whoever was in his house, but he hadn't expected them to make themselves known, much less an inch from his face.

The first thing Mark could make out was a pair of sparkling blue eyes, like the ocean drawn on the picture still in his hand. He looked down to find thick eyebrows, a forehead, and unkempt brown hair. When he looked up...

"You're...you're..." 

The word 'upside-down' was unable to make it past Mark's lips.

"I know, right?" the man cried. He righted himself, expression gleeful. "It's me!" He thrust his arms out, as if expecting a hug.

When all Mark did was stare, the magic man reached forward and ruffled his hair. "C'mon, you remember your summer fun buddy, don't you?"

A snap of recognition went off in Mark's mind. He hadn't been called that since- since-

Mark froze. "Seventeen years ago."

When he looked back at the intruder, whose expression had brightened at the three words. He knew that he had been remembered.

Mark let go of a whisper. "...Jack?"

A pair of arms twisted themselves around his waist, and Mark felt them squeeze the living daylights out of him as a gangly body pressed itself up against his own. "You remember me! I knew you would!"

"But you're-" Mark choked on his words and dislocated the arms that were strangling him around his middle. "Everyone said that you were just an imaginary friend!" He could have been hallucinating, though all the features he remembered of his childhood friend were there: The piercing blue eyes, excited and sparkling; the windswept brown hair (though it now held flecks of gray); the Irish accent; the glow of positivity that radiated from each and every pore of his being.

"You said so yourself, Mark," Jack said. "You told me that you don't care about other people. You said that you know I'm real!"

Those words echoed back to the house's owner in a seventeen-year-old memory, a promise made by two desparate children, in a dark room stripped bare of everything but the bed.

"So...this is real?" It certainly felt real. He could hear Jack, see him and touch him.

Another hair ruffle and a laugh. "Of course I'm real! I promised you I'd come back, didn't I?"

Mark felt a smile form on his lips. "You did promise," he agreed. "I remember that!"

Jack flung his arm around Mark's shoulders. "It'll be just like old times, buddy! You seem pretty lonely, and I know you need a friend. We know each other so well already! Who else knows just how to make you laugh?" The magic man lightly tickled Mark's ribs.

The taller man giggled and shoved his old friend away. "I know that you were always more ticklish than me, you doof!" He made his point by wiggling his fingers over his friend's tummy. 

Jack squealed and floated up to the ceiling to escape. "Alright, you've made your point!" He let himself descend once again. "Feel better yet?"

Mark caught himself in the middle of a chuckle. His lonliness, the philosophical debates with himself, wondering if he should just go home already...he hadn't thought about any of it since he had been spooked by Jack in his kitchen. He felt like a giddy little kid again, ready to conquer the fantasy lands created in his pillow fort.

"I...yeah, I do."

Jack's smile was content; he sat criss-cross in mid-air. "That's what I'm here for, summer fun buddy!"

"You mean you're staying?" Mark cried, eyes shining.

"Yep! You're stuck with me!" the Irishman gave a light punch to his friend's shoulder. "It's time for us to catch up!"

Well..." Mark allowed a simper to take over his lips. "You feel up for a boat ride?"

Jack grinned from ear to ear. "Only if you need a first mate!"

Mark saluted him. "Aye aye, matey!"

For the first time, the house was filled with laughter and music. A pillow fort sprang up on the couch, the bed, in all corners of the living room. Two grown men giggled and pushed and slapped at each other, laughing just for the sake of it as they sailed the seven seas together, happy and reunited at last.


End file.
